Association of Maternal Whole Blood Selenium with Cardiac Structure at 4 years of Age:a prospective birth cohort study.

Background: Currently, little is known about the relationship between maternal blood selenium levels and offspring cardiac structure.

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the association of maternal whole blood selenium levels during early pregnancy with children's cardiac structure at 4 years of age.

Methods: Using data from the Shanghai Birth Cohort, this study analyzed the data from 956 mother-child pairs. Multiple linear or logistic regressions and restricted cubic spline were used to explore the association of maternal whole blood selenium levels with offspring cardiac structure.

Results: Low maternal selenium levels were associated with increased left ventricular posterior wall thickness at systole (LVPWs) (β = 0.29, 95%CI: 0.06, 0.53), left ventricular posterior wall thickness at diastole (LVPWd) (β = 0.17, 95%CI: 0.01, 0.31), and relative wall thickness (RWT) (β = 0.011, 95%CI: 0.003, 0.019) in male offspring. Moreover, maternal selenium showed a U-shape curve with left ventricular mass index (LVMI) (P for nonlinearity = 0.002), LVPWd (P for nonlinearity = 0.035), IVSd (P for nonlinearity = 0.006) and RWT (P for nonlinearity = 0.013) in male offspring. However, no significant association of structural changes was found in female offspring. Compared with offspring with medium maternal selenium levels, the increased risk of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) (OR = 4.14; 95% CI: 1.81, 9.45) was only found in male offspring with lower maternal selenium levels.

Conclusions: Low maternal selenium levels were associated with cardiac structural changes and higher LVH risk in preschool male offspring, while no correlation was found in female offspring.